


David's Investor

by therapychicken



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alexis watches Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Coda, David and Alexis are sibling goals, Driving test, Episode 3x04, M/M, Pre-Relationship, The Affair, but if they really want to I'll gladly take a free sweatshirt, episode 3x09, includes references to, my apologies to Chris Evans, rose apothecary, the GAP did not pay me for the mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 13:16:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18811657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therapychicken/pseuds/therapychicken
Summary: David's going to bed after a long day of prepping the store and decides to tell Alexis about Patrick coming in as an investor. He doesn't know why he finds this information so important, but it is.





	David's Investor

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever completed fanfic!  
> This was written all in one go at 12 AM, with no beta and little proofreading, after I got the idea in the shower and it just wouldn't go away. All mistakes are therefore 110% mine.  
> This is meant as a coda for Season 3 Episode 9, The Affair. Patrick has just offered to invest in Rose Apothecary, and David has accepted. In my headcanon, while both are subconsciously attracted to each other at this point, each believes that he is operating on a purely practical, rational basis in their decisions. I find this to be hilarious.  
> The Kardashian stuff comes from a recap site I found online. I do not actually watch the show, and so have no idea if what I wrote actually makes sense in context. The episode was chosen completely at random, and reflects absolutely no opinion on my part about when this episode takes place in the show's frankly absurd timeline.  
> While I don't know if I believe that Patrick has a "dad bod" per se, I fervently believe that Alexis thinks that he does.  
> I felt like it was really important to reference David and Alexis's argument in Driving Test here, because I think it provides a really interesting perspective on the second half of the season that I feel like people don't mention enough, as usually it's seen as "when Patrick shows up." Driving Test is one of the most meaningful episodes to me, and I have the gif of Alexis telling David that nobody thinks about him as much as he does saved on my phone, and I look at it multiple times a day. I wanted to examine, in the wake of that episode, the fact that, Patrick aside, David really does start taking himself a bit less seriously and allowing things to go easier for him after this discussion with Alexis, which leads him to start taking risks and having adventures that he would have previously been much too anxious to begin. I absolutely love David and Alexis's relationship, and so I felt like this was an angle of the story worth telling.  
> Please leave comments! I'd love to know what people think of my first ever foray into fanfic.

David slammed the bathroom door behind him and smiled at the "ew!" that Alexis yelped out as she avidly watched something bright and undoubtedly idiotic and vapid on her phone. At least this time her earbuds were in. He walked over to her bed and swiped one of the earbuds, falling back quickly onto his bed before she could whack him with her pillow, leaving the earbud dangling.

"I was in the middle of something, David." With a loud sigh, she tapped her screen and turned to him. "The Kardashians are in Bali, and Mas Joko just told Kourtney and Scott that they're soulmates, even though now Scott's dating Sofia Richie. That guy is a scammer, though, he tells everyone they're soulmates. He even told that to Chris Evans and me when we went, and poor Chris, he believed him and proposed to me on the spot." 

"Well, excuse _me_ for interrupting. I just thought that you  _might_ be interested to know that if you want to do any more work for me at the store, maybe pay off some of that eucalyptus serum you've been scraping off the top of the top of the jars, then Patrick WILL be there." He couldn't help himself from slightly smiling as he said it. He couldn't really put a finger on why he had chosen to mention this to Alexis exactly, but then again, anything that would bring her in to compensate for the ridiculous amount of product that she was ruining would be helpful. 

Alexis looked up, eyebrows arched. "Um, why is that?" she asked in a tone that seemed a little bit more suspicious than David thought was exactly charitable in a sibling. "Is he bringing more documents? Hopefully in slightly classier frames?" 

"Actually, no. I brought him in as a partner. An investor. For the business." Alexis's eyes were narrowing, which was kind of... alarming. "He's going to be helping out with getting startup funding, all of the business stuff... so you won't be able to 'flirtatiously boss him around' because he's going to be busy. And what the fuck is wrong with your face? It's going to get stuck like that."

"Nothing is wrong with my face, David," Alexis responded primly, "I just think this is a  _very_ interesting development. So he's helping you with start up money, is he?"

"Yes, he is. What are you implying?" 

"Oh, nothing, David, it's just that when Mom and Dad helped you with  _start up money_ for your other businesses, you weren't very happy about that, were you?" David could feel his mouth opening to say something, he wasn't sure exactly what yet, when Alexis continued with one of those terrible smirks, "He is cute in a department store Casual Friday sort of way, isn't he? The buzz cut shouldn't work, but it does."

"Ugh, it has nothing to do with him or his appearance or his hair or his clothes, and for the record, I don't even think those come from a department store. I'm pretty sure those shirts are no-iron, and there was a GAP label on the back of his jeans." 

"So I'm going to gloss over the fact that you were looking at the back of his jeans, while they were on his short but surprisingly hot dad bod," and Alexis didn't even  _stop_ as David felt himself sputtering and his face turning purple, "and just remind you that when you started out with this, you wanted to do it by yourself, to like prove yourself or something. So I'm just wondering what changed." 

David could feel his thoughts whirring without being 100% sure what those thoughts were, and whatever they were, he did know he didn't want to talk about them with Alexis. "Thank you so much for your input, but I know what I'm doing with my business. Which is still mine. Even if I bring in a... partner." 

"Whatever, David, it's your funeral," she said as she began to put her earbuds back in. "And just so you know, I don't chase after guys who aren't interested in me, no matter how cute they look with their little adorable button noses, so Patrick is all yours." She pressed play just as David was about to say something about Patrick not being all his, Patrick had no interest in him, Patrick just wanted to be a partner in the business, but he knew there was no point. 

Patrick wasn't joining the store because he was  _interested_ in David. Patrick was definitely straight. The no-iron Oxford, the industrial-style picture frame, those horrible shoes. He was just friendly, and wanted an obviously excellent business opportunity, and went home at the end of the day to his girlfriend or his fiancee or something, someone nice and sweet and inoffensive. He just knew a good business plan when he saw it, or heard it in multiple marijuana-laced voicemail messages. 

But why  _had_ David taken up Patrick's offer?

It was true, David had thrown a fit when he'd realized that his parents had surreptitiously paid for his whole glitzy gallerist lifestyle. But who wouldn't freak out after finding out that their  _entire life_ was a lie created and supported by parents who apparently didn't think he could do anything for himself? This store was meant to be David taking his own money, that he'd gotten by using his own effort and guts and quick thinking, and making it into his own store, that he designed and created and ran by himself. Without needing anyone else. And here he was with someone else propping him up. 

And it certainly wasn't because David was into Patrick. No, definitely not. Okay, sure, so he hadn't realized that a buzzcut could actually work on someone with a head shape like that, and Patrick had filled out that pair of- shudder- GAP jeans quite nicely, to the very minimal extent that he'd bothered to notice, but still, there was no point in being attracted to extremely, extremely straight people. Extremely straight people who leaned up against the counter in the way that he himself used to do it while on the prowl at bars, who said things like that he was going to "get the money" in a dark raspy tone that had made David flustered for no good reason, who seemed to pay much more attention to David than to his extremely flirtatious and attractive sister. 

Okay, so.  _Even if_ Patrick wasn't exactly a 0 on the Kinsey scale... he still wasn't the kind of guy David liked. At all. He didn't usually go for short guys, or guys who practically shaved off their hair, or guys who  _smiled_ quite so much. What Patrick DID have in common with some of David's past boyfriends was a tendency to laugh at David a lot, but with Patrick it felt different, somehow. Like he was laughing, but in a nice way. Patrick was  _nice._ And David didn't date nice. 

So why had he taken Patrick on? Why hadn't he kept on with doing the store by himself, with no help, nobody to babysit him or make him feel like he couldn't go at it alone?

Ignoring that niggling feeling in the back of his mind that maybe he hadn't fully explored the idea of whether Patrick's laughter-filled brown eyes might have anything to do with it, David turned to his side and watched as Alexis wound up her earbuds and put her phone on the bedside table. Alexis didn't worry about things like this, didn't second guess every decision she made. She just made him do that to himself.

Suddenly he could remember sitting in the car at the driving test office with Alexis, screaming at her that she "skates through life" and her screaming back that she doesn't skate, she "walks through life in really nice shoes." Her not getting that things just go so easily for her, her yelling at him to stop worrying, her not getting how much he fucking worried about her for the last twenty fucking years... That had not been fair. Things really had just fallen into her lap, opportunities, jobs- her ex- _fiance_ had given her a job, for fuck's sake- she just had things so easy!

So maybe it was time for him to let things fall into his lap, too. 

When Patrick had walked into the store and offered his services as an investor and business advisor, it had been almost instinctive for David to agree, and maybe that was a bit disturbing if he thought about it too much. But maybe it was a good thing. David shouldn't have to worry so much about stuff, things shouldn't have to be hard, he should be allowed to skate through life a little bit and let someone else help him out along the way. The store would still be his even if he had someone along for the ride, someone to support him. He should be able to enjoy the store. Maybe things could be easy, and fun, and he could let loose some slack. 

"I want to walk through life in really nice shoes," he said out loud. "Just with a bit more structural integrity than the average woman's strappy heel." 

He could hear a faint "huh" from over in the next bed, and said again louder, "I want to walk through life in nice shoes!" 

"So then order some in the morning, David, no need to yell about that now," Alexis muttered into her pillow, and she rolled over and covered her face with the blanket. 

David smiled. He was going to let the store fall into his lap. He was going to make it happen with Patrick, someone who could support him and help him, because it wasn't just Alexis who deserved that. And Patrick would be great to have around. He was bright, and had a head for numbers that David knew he lacked utterly, and seemed to actually enjoy some of David's more... petulant moments, and seemed genuinely invested in the future of the store. And he smiled a lot, even at David, with those dancing brown eyes. This was going to work out great.

As David closed his eyes, he pictured the store with Patrick around, as a partner, and could suddenly see that lasting for a long, long time. 


End file.
